Episode-1008- Listener Feedback for 10-29-12

It’s Monday and time for another round of you your feedback, questions and commentary sent to jack at thesurvivalpodcast.com.

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21 Responses to Episode-1008- Listener Feedback for 10-29-12

Quick question. I lost my husband of 20 years and he loved your show and started some of it. For a widowed woman now with 17 year old daughter and three big dogs-2 german shepherds. How would you recommend starting back. Thanks

Michelle Given that a portion of my career has been with helping develop “action plans” in many areas, financial being a notable part of that experience if you have specific questions or goals I will help you develop, review or modify your goals in order to reach achievable goals. Setting bench marks on realistic goals is a good way and I offer my services at no charge. Best Regards

I know Germany has done well economically, but how have they become the second biggest holder of gold reserves just since 1945? We must have let them keep a lot of the gold they stole durning WWII. Their government was totally bankrupt in the 1930s and then again at the end of the war.

In the 70s and 80s I remember older folks saying all the time, “If you want to have a successful economy, just start a war with the US, lose and let them rebuild everything for you. There is something to that, specifically with Germany and Japan.

@Hank, great point and it seems to pass muster. This concerns me even more though! This is a weapon that clearly you would not want even one component to possibly survive in enemy hands. If you put it on a missile that seems like it would solve the problem but missile parts are all over the place. Of course you would want a self destruct option but this would not be designed to be used as a disposable tool. There is no reason for that, it would be like having a laser that you fire three times and blow up.

So to me this thing is designed to be a drone mounted weapon, it is clear as day that it is the case to me. So testing on a cruise missile seems to be designed to further distance society from the facts about it.

I agree – the old cluster munition version of the Tomahawk could travel via multiple waypoints and attack multiple targets and that was 80’s tech. And you’re correct – Russia/China is working on this stuff too.

I second the comment, Jack, that my generator/extension cords/stored fuel has been our single most used prep, second only to LED lighting.

We live in the South, and we need fans/AC. Somehow, having lights on, fans running, and reading news on Internet or talking to friends on Facebook when the lights are out everywhere else is comforting.

Flippydiddit on the Forum and I are cooking up a solar-powered cooler project that might be of interest to you in a few months, though 🙂

Jack, I used to work on missiles and at missile testing ranges. You’re right, “intentionally terminated” could mean it’s a UAV.

“Intentionally terminated” means that flight safety triggered the self-destruct because the missile or drone was leaving the defined area of operations and could not be commanded to return. The flight safety group on any range insists on having a SEPARATE remote-controlled self-destruct system on anything flying on their range, and they will pop it if they don’t like what is happening. A buddy of mine had one of his prototypes blown to scrap by flight safety when it wasn’t anywhere near the edge of the MOA, just because they didn’t like the course it was on.

And I agree with you: this is a multiple-use anti-electronic anti-materiel device. And yes, it could be used by a SWAT team.

And this kind of technology has been available for awhile. Explosively-pumped single-use EMP devices have been built by amateurs, for heaven’s sake. What can Boeing do, with decades of experience in microwave engineering?

So we have been retooling our armed forces in the last 10 years to fight third world rebels living in mud huts but now we develop and reveal a weapon targeting sophisticated moden infrastructure? This segment left me wondering what threat / target this weapon is being developed for.

A quick note about tires. Getting the correct tires for the application is critical. You don’t have to buy the super expensive tires, because there is only about 3 companies who make tires for EVERYONE else. Just get the right tool for the job.

I was rather surprised to hear my email about tires read in it’s entirety today! Jack, you asked where I live: in the flinthills of Kansas. Like Randy said above, flint and tires are not a good combination. On the “improved” roads, they try to cover it up with limestone, but that doesn’t help much. Plus, we do have some excellent county roads around here where 60+ MPH is not uncommon. Not that I’d do that…. very often… I’ve been driving on gravel roads for 30+ years, tried just about every brand of tire there is, and like I said I consider it a *good* set of tires that’ll last for half their rated mileage. I haven’t done this for a while, but I used to carry cans of fix-a-flat with me — not for me, but for the others that come out to the country unprepared.

And yes, my comment about all the city folk “heading for the hills” was tongue-in-cheek.

Two comments from me today. Disclaimer first, I do own an EcoZoom rocket stove and love it; I have no experience with a Jamaican coal pot. One benefit that I can associate with the EcoZoom stove is that the stove, the skirt (heat shield), kindling and coal can all fit inside a standard 5 gallon bucket which makes it easy for transport and consolidates the dirty stove inside a bucket when transporting. You can actually build up your kindling and coal inside the stove and then place it in the bucket so that all you need to do is pull it out and light it up.

Regarding tires, we should not forget about snow tires. I lived in upstate New York for 21 years and never owned snow tires, I was too broke to buy them and didn’t know the benefits. I moved to the French Alps in 2005 and bought a set for my car there and wow, what a difference they make. It can not be understated. I live in Texas now and don’t need snow tires but if I ever moved somewhere where it snowed regularly I would most certainly invest the money in snow tires.

Regarding tires on loose surface roads: back in the ’70s I was running a SAAB 99 in US Pro Rally and Canadian National Rally Championship events. For my inaugural attempt I had a set of new Pirelli M&S tires that I was very proud of. Before the event, reigning champ John Buffum from VT came by and said I might have problems with my tires. Sure enough, I had a flat on the first special stage and a second one later on. With no more spares, I withdrew. Back at the finish I told my story to John, who offered me some used Pirelli Corsas — built for the WRC — at a very reasonable cost. I bought all ten, always carried two spares, but never had another flat in three years of rallying as well as using the car for daily transportation. They had 4-ply sidewalls and two steel belts. Great tires!

I’d be really surprised if we switched over to a gold-backed currency. While it’s true that such a currency could be manipulated just as the dollar is, it would be politically more difficult to do. Changing the conversion to gold ratio would be a highly controversial act — whereas with today’s dollar, all you need to do to print more (at least in normal times) is to lower the interest rate.

@BeninMA, you keep believing that if you want to, but this is one of the most telegraphed punches in history on the way. You also need to understand as long as you have fractional reserve banking the currency can be inflated at will, at ten times the amount of gold in reserve. Couple that with the initial inflated value of gold and the reset buttons solves a lot of currently unsolvable problems.

The response of “but when they can’t deal with the cap to meet their agenda what do they do then?” ignores history. By then most people that remember the old way (just like now) will be dead and they will just switch it again. We think in years, the people in power think in decades and even centuries.

Just wanted to comment on tires… Based on my empirical analysis, the type of tire does make a difference in durability. A “p” (passenger) rated tire has four plies while an “lt” (light truck) has 10 plys (at least Toyo brand). I went throught two sets of p rated tires, with flats on at least three of the four in both cases. Having switched to the lt tire – no flats, same vehicle, same road. Frequently, flats would occur when new gravel was laid down i.e. sharper, but more speed and tire wear impacted the frequency as well. Other people I know on the same road report similar stories.